The Mandalorian’s Cara Dune not likely to be recast, Disney says

It’s been a whirlwind week for fans of The Mandalorian and the character Cara Dune after Lucasfilm announced actress Gina Carano was no longer employed by the company. Now, Disney, which bought Lucasfilm back in 2012, has told news outlets that Cara Dune is not likely to be recast.

Fans have been clamoring for news on what’s next for Cara Dune in The Mandalorian series and other potential spinoff series that could have included the character. Rumors and hopes of a Cara Dune recast started swirling with the publication of The Hollywood Reporter feature chronicling key events and social media posts that led to Carano’s firing.

THR’s report initially said insiders with Lucasfilm and Disney expect the Cara Dune character to be recast at a later date, “for both story and merchandising reasons.” The outlet also wrote that a Lucasfilm source said a Cara Dune recast is not expected.

THR later clarified the recasting rumor:

"Updated to add a Lucasfilm source saying that the Cara Dune role on The Mandalorian is not expected to be recast and that she was not part of the Dec. 10 presentation, nor was she engaged in negotiations for future work."

The future of Cara Dune

IndieWire also reported that it had confirmed with a Disney spokesperson that Cara Dune would not be recast. Both outlets confirmed that Cara Dune was not slated to be included in The Mandalorian spinoff series, The Book of Boba Fett, which is expected to release in December.

In The Mandalorian, Cara Dune is a former Rebel fighter from Alderaan and in season 1, teamed up with Mandalorian Din Djarin to fight remaining Imperial holdouts on the planet Nevarro. By season 2, she was a New Republic Marshal on the planet.

On top of the firing news, Carano was also dropped from her agency UTA, Deadline reported last week. Hasbro also announced it would no longer create Cara Dune collectible figurines or toys. The company said in a statement to THR:

"“The Star Wars Black Cara Dune figure was released in 2020 and sold out not long after the inventory was received,” a spokeswoman for BigBadToyStore told THR in a Monday email. “Hasbro planned for another production run and we were accepting preorders from that production run. Due to recent events, Hasbro was no longer approved to produce any more of this figure.”"

According to THR’s report, plans to cut Carano from Lucasfilm and Disney had been in the works for a while after a series of controversial social media posts. In November she posted a tweet suggesting voter fraud in the 2020 election and later posted a meme to Twitter mocking mask mandates amid the pandemic. In September, she was also accused of making “transphobic” comments in her Twitter bio.

Carano’s firing news came hours after she shared an Instagram story suggesting that being a conservative in today’s world is the same as being Jewish leading up to the Holocaust in the 1940s.

Lucasfilm’s statement, released Feb. 10, made it clear her ousting was directly related to her social media activity:

"Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future. Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable."

With Carano out and season 3 production of The Mandalorian not expected to begin until April, what will happen to Cara Dune in the upcoming season? It appears likely creators will write the character out of future storylines.